From another thread...

"the conclusion is always there ready-made before the thinking process; the thinking does not serve, as in the rational realm, to arrive at a correct conclusion; rather, it serves to confirm an already existing irrational conclusion and to rationalize it. This is generally called "prejudice"; what is overlooked is that this prejudice has social consequences of considerable magnitude, that it is very wide-spread and practically synonymous with what is called "inertia and tradition"; it is intolerant, that is, it does not tolerate the rational thinking which might do away with it; consequently, the thinking of the emotional plague is inaccessible to arguments; it has its own technique within its own realm, its own "logicality," as it were; for this reason, it gives the impression of rationality without being actually rational."

(Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis, Vision Press Ltd, London, 1969 (1st ed 1933), p 256)

This is something which has always fascinated me: how/why do we know what we know? Have philosophers (as distinct, say, from social psychologists, got an opinion about 'emotional intelligence'?

Mark: you tend to major on 'experience' in terms of your 'belief' in God (if I read you right). So do Pentecostals... I'm a little wary of experience (could be biochemical processes at work :-)

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Shalom!

Rowland Croucher